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Peter G. Peterson

The Honorable Peter G. Peterson

Co-Founder The Concord Coalition

Peter G. Peterson is Chairman and Co-Founder of The Blackstone Group. He is Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, founding Chairman of the Institute for International Economics (Washington, D.C.) and founding President of The Concord Coalition. The Concord Coalition is a bi-partisan citizen's group he organized in 1992 together with former Senators Warren Rudman and the late Paul Tsongas (who was succeeded by Senator Robert Kerrey). The Concord Coalition is dedicated to building a constituency of fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Peterson is the Co-Chair of The Conference Board Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprises (Co-Chaired by John Snow, currently Secretary of the Treasury). He was also Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2000 to 2004.

Prior to founding Blackstone, Mr. Peterson was Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers (1973–1977) and later Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. (1977–1984). He was Chairman and CEO of Bell and Howell Corporation from 1963 to 1971.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon named Mr. Peterson Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs. He was named Secretary of Commerce by President Nixon in 1972. At that time he also assumed the Chairmanship of President Nixon's National Commission on Productivity and was appointed U.S. Chairman of the U.S.–Soviet Commercial Commission, which negotiated comprehensive trade, Ex-Im credit, arbitration, copyright and lend-lease agreements. In February of 1994, President Clinton named Mr. Peterson as a member of the Bi-Partisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform co-chaired by Senators Kerrey and Danforth.

Mr. Peterson was formerly a Director of Sony Corporation, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, Federated Department Stores, Black & Decker Manufacturing Company, General Foods Corporation, RCA, The Continental Group, and Cities Service. Mr. Peterson is a Trustee of the Committee for Economic Development, the Japan Society and the Museum of Modern Art and a Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Public Agenda Foundation and The Nixon Center.

In 1982, he was a founding member of the Bi-Partisan Budget Appeal, an organization of 500 heads of major organizations, accounting, law and banking firms, university and former public officials.

Mr. Peterson is the author of several books, including Running On Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It; Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America – and the World; Will America Grow Up Before It Grows Old?; and Facing Up: How to Rescue the Economy from Crushing Debt and Restore the American Dream.

He has been awarded honorary PhD degrees by Colgate University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Northwestern University, New School University, the University of Rochester, and Southampton College of Long Island University.